A Slide Into the Familiar
by drewbug
Summary: This all feels so very familiar.


A Slide Into the Familiar  
  
by Nicole Clevenger (c)November 2003  
  
Notes: Two thoughts I have are these: I remain forever indebted to Joss Whedon and all that he has set into motion; Alexis Denisof is still criminally unrecognized as a major talent. This is but a moment, taking place after the fifth season Halloween episode "Life of the Party."   
  
~  
  
It's a lot easier to pretend you're not lonely when there's no one else around.  
  
Fred's laugh slips through the gap in the closing elevator doors, and Wesley flinches. His head feels heavy, fuzzy in that way that can only come from a post-spell hangover. He wonders if it's worth it to go home, or if he'll be better off just getting a couple of hours on the new plush couch in his office.   
  
He leans against the wall, rubbing tired eyes with his fingertips. When he moves his arm, he catches a whisper of her perfume from his sleeve, and he remembers what it felt like to have her body pressing against him. The way she's no doubt leaning on Knox right now, downstairs amongst the party debris. His arm falls limply at his side as the elevator reaches his floor.  
  
Since they came here, Wesley often finds himself beset by teasing half-memories of long empty nights that never happened. Nights filled with restless desperation for the sound of any voice other than the one inside his own head, nights of drinking fast and alone in the hopes of permanently avoiding any thoughts of the vague aching *something* that his conscious mind can now no longer pinpoint. He dreams of blood and solitude and the bitter taste of irretrievable choices, only to awake confused in the dark of his apartment, mistaking his shadows for those of an old hotel filled with both the living and the dead.  
  
He doesn't understand these fragments, but their smoke follows him unseen through many of his waking hours. It's like a vague recollection of scattered story pieces - a shadowed peripheral world that was never his own - but when he compares it to this having to watch Fred laughing with a boy in a lab coat, Wesley finds that there's actually some comfort in the glimpsed scenes of dark isolation. At least alone he could entertain the idea that she might be thinking about him instead.  
  
He closes the office door behind him. Locks the door as an afterthought. There's a book lying open and forgotten on his desk; Wesley flips the cover closed and turns away without registering the title. The one on the couch he moves to the polished end table, only to watch it tip and drop off the edge onto the floor. He sighs, picks it up off the carpet and tries again. This time the book stays where it should.  
  
He doesn't even bother to take off his shoes as he stretches out on the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the morning light that's beginning to seep in through the expensive blinds. He's already forgotten about the lingering perfume - again Fred's laugh echoes through the scent in his mind, lilting over the faint buzz of his growing headache. Perhaps he should've gone home after all.  
  
*Get up, go home*, the voice murmurs. *Better yet - keep going. Don't go home. Just go.*  
  
It's an idea, and a rather seductive one. Out of this place with its hollow promises and shaky lines. Away from the memories, the divisions, the changing faces of people who were once friends. It doesn't matter where to, really, just as long as it's away...  
  
This place is altering them all, no matter what the speed. Wesley can feel himself slipping too, but for him it's a slide into the familiar. He finds Wolfram & Hart's massive resources to be both fascinating and useful, but this role he's been relegated to reminds him too much of his days as a Watcher. It's an ill-fitting outfit now, and one he has no desire to squeeze his way back into. Lately Wesley thinks much of those days, of the person he once was. Naive. Sheltered. Arrogant. There's too much time here to dwell on things he thought long buried. Things he's said, mocking him in his own voice like a warped playback of recorded sound bytes. The way he's acted, hiding behind all his supposed knowledge like a scared little man trying to puff himself up until he popped. No, the images reflected in his memory's mirror are not flattering ones.  
  
And with the books in his new library, he can't even lose himself in the research (as if that were really still a possibility, in this new skin of his) - it's simply ask and receive, most of the time. Maybe it gets them the answers a little faster, but it doesn't make him feel any more useful. Or involved.   
  
More and more frequently now he spends his nights seeking out escape, a frantic compulsive search that somehow feels both habitual and unnerving. Lurking in the shadows of demon bars in the rougher areas of town, looking for a drink, a fight, a fuck. He's not nearly as recognizable as their company's new CEO, and that virtual anonymity means that the night's progression is never inevitable. Wesley rarely knows if last call is going to mean a drunken dance of concealed weapons in a back alley or an amorous stranger in a cheap room, running her fingers over (the line of scar tissue lightly circling) the pale skin of his neck. Most of the time it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.  
  
  
  
There's a knock at his office door, nothing more than a tentative tapping. Wesley doesn't move. If it's important, he wagers, they'll certainly knock harder.  
  
He sees now that knowledge isn't everything, that books and prophecies are only part of the ongoing battle. Guidelines, really - if even that. Some days he wonders if maybe they aren't just all being toyed with, nudged through the maze for some higher being's amusement. Good. Evil. The PTB. Wolfram & Hart's senior partners.   
  
Some days he doesn't wonder. Some days he's certain.  
  
Wesley understands that he's not the only one with these thoughts. Anyone who's seen the things they've seen has to question. But he can't reconcile this itching feeling that he has his own personal connection to this idea, an attachment born of experience. A blurred sense that prophecy has failed him, that book knowledge has revealed itself to be little more than a diaphanous drape between himself and what must be done. He wishes he could remember the events that lead to these vague perceptions - if, indeed, there were any events at all - but when he reaches, the memories dissolve in his grasping hands.   
  
*What do you think of Knox?* Fred giggles in his ear. Even drunk, he manages to bite down on his honest reply: Wesley goes to great lengths not to think of Knox at all.   
  
When there's no one else around, you don't have to worry about having your loneliness bounced back by the reflection of another person's eyes.  
  
The knock comes again, only slightly more insistent than before. He can hear the muffled sound of voices on the other side, but they don't speak loudly enough for him to distinguish their identities. He half expects Spike to come oozing through the wall, an intruder bleached and snarky.   
  
Wesley doesn't even glance in the direction of the door.  
  
end. 


End file.
